red him and his exploits so large an argument of romance that both
are almost disclaimed by history. Light scarce begins to dawn until the
introduction of Christianity, which, bringing with it the use of letters
and the arts of civil life, affords at once a juster account of things
and facts that are more worthy of relation: nor is there, indeed, any
revolution so remarkable in the English story.

The bishops of Rome had for some time meditated the conversion of the
Anglo-Saxons. Pope Gregory, who is surnamed the Great, affected that
pious design with an uncommon zeal; and he at length found a
circumstance highly favorable to it in the marriage of a daughter of
Charibert, a king of the Franks, to the reigning monarch of Kent. This
opportunity induced Pope Gregory to commission Augustin, a monk of
Rheims, and a man of distinguished piety, to undertake this arduous
enterprise.

[Sidenote: A.D. 600]

It was in the year of Christ 600, and 150 years after the coming of the
first Saxon colonies into England, that Ethelbert, king of Kent,
received intelligence of the arrival in his dominions of a number of
men in a foreign garb, practising several strange and unusual
ceremonies, who desired to be conducted to the king's presence,
declaring that they had things to communicate to him and to his people
of the utmost importance to their eternal welfare. This was Augustin,
with forty of the associates of his mission, who now landed in the Isle
of Thanet, the same place by which the Saxons had before entered, when
they extirpated Christianity.

The king heard them in the open air, in order to defeat,[28] upon a
principle of Druidical superstition, the effects of their enchantments.
Augustin spoke by a Frankish interpreter. The Franks and Saxons were of
the same origin, and used at that time the same language. He was
favorably received; and a place in the city of Canterbury, the capital
of Kent, was allotted for the residence of him and his companions. They
entered Canterbury in procession, preceded by two persons who bore a
silver cross and the figure of Christ painted on a board, singing, as
they went, litanies to avert the wrath of God from that city and people.

The king was among their first converts. Tho principal of his nobility,
as usual, followed that example, moved, as it is related, by many signal
miracles, but undoubtedly by the extraordinary zeal of the missionaries,
and the pious austerity of their lives. The new r